Lubbock Cooper's coach Courtney Pesterfield speaks with her team during a timeout against Pampa during their game at West Texas A&M in Canyon, TX Tuesday. (Stephen Spillman / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal)

CANYON — Cooper volleyball coach Courtney Pesterfield hadn’t prepared for her Lady Pirates to go down two sets to none against Pampa in the opening round of the playoffs.

After an hour against the Lady Harvesters in The Box at West Texas A&M, Pesterfield was staring straight at the situation she couldn’t have envisioned one week ago when playoff pairings were finalized.

Luckily for the Cooper coach, her players had a vision of something different than a first-round playoff exit.

“After (the deficit) I think we just really had to rise,” Cooper outside hitter Megan Allen said. “It’s all or nothing. We’ve just got to play at our best and really give it all that we had. It was win or lose.”

The Lady Pirates rose to the occasion again and again Tuesday night, fighting back from a 2-0 hole to defeat the Lady Harvesters in five sets in the bi-district round of the Region I-3A playoffs (19-25, 22-25, 25-20, 25-21, 15-8).

Cooper, who split the District 2-3A regular-season title but played Tuesday as the runner-up, quickly fell behind largely thanks to Pampa’s strong play.

The Lady Harvesters (14-23) limited their hitting errors and forced the ball past awaiting Lady Pirate hands throughout the first two sets.

The Lady Pirates (26-8) couldn’t string together more than two points in a row in the first set and notched only four multi-point runs in the second set.

“They beat us the first two times we played them extremely badly,” Pampa coach Brooke Sanford said. “So for us to come out and play this tough against them, it was good for our kids.”

Staring elimination square in the face, Cooper upped the ante and began raising its hitting percentage and lowering the number of errors.

Katy Headrick, who led the Lady Pirates with 13 kills and 11.5 blocks, said the team was worried after early gap.

“But we were also ready and excited,” Headrick said. “We weren’t going to lose.”

Keyed by stellar defensive play from all across the court, the Lady Pirates played the Lady Harvesters, who finished third in District 1-3A, toe-to-toe in the third set and never got behind more than an early 7-4 deficit.

Cooper took the lead for good at 16-15 on a Pampa error, a sign of things to come as Cooper took the third set 25-20. While Cooper’s mistakes went down, Pampa’s mistakes went way up.

The main reason for Pampa’s mistake hike was the play of Cooper’s defense, which extended rallies and gave Cooper hitters chances to make plays.

Kati Macha led four players in double-digit digs with 29.

The Lady Pirates had seized all momentum late in the fourth set, and two Abbi White one-handed digs kept a set-point alive for Cooper long enough for Headrick to drop the ball softly on the Lady Harvester sideline.

With Pampa still reeling, Cooper took advantage of Lady Harvester errors to take a 12-3 lead in the fifth set en route to a 15-8 final-set win.

“Defense was the name of the game tonight. We had some incredible defensive plays by Abbi White, Keelie Nelson — kids that are usually just kind of background players for us,” Pesterfield said. “They do their job but they’re not really in the limelight. So those girls really just stole the show for us tonight.”

Nelson had 13 digs, and White finished with a dozen. Summer Wilson added 10 digs to go along with nine kills.

Torey Kay spread the ball around to several Cooper hitters, notching 44 assists. Allen and Claire Shaver had 11 kills apiece for the Lady Pirates, who will face District 3-3A champ Pecos on Saturday at 11 a.m. in Andrews.